Paris: The Novel

week of the month that he went to see Louise.
    She received him in her office at L’Invitation au Voyage. She was surprised to see him, but she asked him how he was, and what she could do for him.
    “I was thinking about you.” He smiled. “Perhaps I was worrying aboutyou a little.” He shrugged. “Whatever may have happened, we are still old friends.”
    She made no comment.
    “Louise,” he went on with a little show of urgency, “I make no comment about how you live. Who am I to do so? But I worry because if the Germans are kicked out, I think you could be in danger. Everyone says that half the German senior staff come here. They will call you a collaborator. Then things could get ugly.”
    “They find women here. Nothing else.”
    “I know that. But down in the street, I can tell you, people may not make such a distinction.” He smiled. “You are living in a rather protected world, my dear.”
    And a rich one, he thought. God knows how much money she must have put by over the years. If anyone had an escape planned and paid for, it must surely be this woman. The question was, if he showed enough concern for her welfare, would she be prepared to save him too?
    She nodded thoughtfully.
    “I think you may be right. Have you an escape to offer me, Luc?”
    “I hoped you might have gotten one already. I’m sure yours would be better, and safer than anything I can offer.”
    “I have no escape route, Luc.”
    A silence fell.
    Was she playing with him? He had a faint but uncomfortable sense that she was. He stood up, and gazed around the room.
    “I shall have to find one then,” he said absently.
    “For me, Luc, or for yourself?”
    He started, but quickly controlled himself. She was sharp. She knew him too well.
    “I was thinking of you,” he answered quietly.
    Why was she so calm, though? Did she not understand her danger? Or was there some other reason? Had she already gotten the protection that he had tried to get for himself? Did she have friends in the Resistance?
    He gazed at the portrait that graced the main wall. It wasn’t Louise, of course, but it looked quite like her. Clever to have the two sketches for the painting as well. A nice touch. She was rich all right. He was struck by a pang of jealousy.
    He stared at the sketches, noticed the name in the corner of one of them, looked more closely.
    Corinne.
    “Do you know something, Luc?” her voice came from behind him. “You have never in your life done anything that was not for yourself. Therefore, if you are here now speaking about an escape route, it is because you need one, and you are wondering if I can provide it.”
    “Actually, you are wrong,” he said evenly. “There is no reason for me to escape.”
    “Then that is fortunate. Because I am going to let you in on a little secret. I wish you no harm, Luc, none at all. But if I had an escape route, I wouldn’t tell you. Because I don’t trust you.”
    He felt a spasm of rage pass through him. How dare she not believe him? Not only that, she was treating him with scorn—the same scorn she’d used when she had thrown him out before. And though he had kept his resentment most carefully in check when he had arrived at her door, the memory of that event, of his humiliation and impotence, now hit him again, suddenly, with the force of a wave.
    She had gone too far. He’d made her what she was, yet she dared to treat him with contempt. Very well. She was going to find out how dangerous that was. This time he would punish her. He would teach her a final lesson, the last she would ever learn.
    “If this is how you treat your friends,” he said, in a voice so quiet it was little more than a whisper, “I shall leave you, Louise.”

    One hour later, Schmid was surprised to receive a visit from Luc. And still more so when, as soon as he was seated, the Frenchman calmly announced: “I have news that may interest you. I think I’ve found Corinne.”
    It did not take the Frenchman long to tell his story. After he had finished, Schmid nodded slowly.
    “It is possible you are right. I know this woman and her place.”
    “She has some good pictures.”
    “Yes.”
    “You said you would pay well.”
    “Oh yes, I will pay.”
    “Can you go there and look for yourself? It would preserve my cover.”
    “Come back in three days,” said Schmid.

    Louise was irritated, two evenings later, that the Gestapo man Schmid had announced that he would pay one of his rare visits. The girls